Let’s Look at the Issues

While we observe the memory of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. this week, we think it is equally appropriate to look back at another important figure of the civil rights movement, Franklin McCain, who passed away this week.

Franklin McCain is not nearly as well known as Dr. King. There is no national memorial in his honor, no holiday in observance of his life. But on February 1, 1960, Franklin McCain participated in an action in a city more than 500 miles from New York that led Local 6 members into action here in Manhattan. On that day, McCain and three fellow black college students sat down at a lunch counter at a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina.

They weren’t supposed to do that. You see, that lunch counter was supposed to be for whites only. But Franklin McCain and his three classmates said they would not leave until they were served. McCain later said it was the most empowering moment he had ever had. “The best feeling of my life,” he told the Associated Press four years ago, “was sitting on that dumb stool.”

McCain and his fellow students stayed on those stools until the store closed. They returned the next day, and subsequent days, and they were joined by more protesters. By the fifth day, there were at least 1,000 protestors — black and white — demanding an end to segregation at the Greensboro Woolworth and at all other places in the South.

But that was only the beginning. Franklin McCain and his classmates soon had company not only in Greensboro but elsewhere. The campaign caught fire. In just a short time sit-ins were launched in more than 50 cities in nine different states. One of those cities was New York, where hundreds of people — again, both black and white — began demonstrating outside Woolworth stores. Many of those demonstrations were led by members of the Hotel Trades Council and Local 6.

Members of our Union picketed a number of Woolworth locations in Manhattan, chanting, “We walk so all can sit!” “End segregation now!” and “Boycott Woolworth!” This was a serious message to the wealthy retailer. It was saying that an end to segregation was a national demand, not an issue limited to a mid-sized city in the South. Meanwhile, the sit-ins continued in Greensboro and the Woolworth boycott began to hurt the company’s business.

The campaign worked! Less than six months after Franklin McCain and his classmates began sitting-in at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, the company ended segregation at its locations in the South. It was another victory in the battle for civil rights, a battle in which our Union was a proud and active participant.

There were, of course, more battles yet to come. A few months after the Woolworth campaign, John F. Kennedy was elected President and the campaign for civil rights and voting rights legislation gathered additional momentum. President Kennedy’s movement toward these goals was tragically halted by his assassination, in 1963, but President Lyndon B. Johnson — himself a Southerner — continued the effort. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. The Voting Rights Act was enacted the following year.

But the fight for equal rights didn’t stop with these historic laws. Today, women are still paid less than men. Today, gays aren’t allowed to marry in many states. Today, 11 million undocumented workers and many children of immigrants who have known no other country but the U.S. live under a cloud of legal uncertainty. Today, countless U.S. workers would love to join a union but are afraid to do so because of fear of losing their jobs. Today, the income gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is larger than ever. These are civil rights issues!

After his fight to desegregate Woolworth lunch counters Franklin McCain knew the battle for civil rights was far from over. In 1998, mocking the attitude of many, he said, ”’Affirmative action’ now means ‘reverse discrimination.’ ‘Neighborhood schools’ means ‘keep those black kids close to their own homes and out of our schools.’ ‘Inner city’ is a code word for ‘us.’ Welfare queen’ is just a term to paint a black face on welfare, when it is really the young white mother with two children who is the typical welfare recipient.”

Franklin McCain wasn’t finished. He asked, “What is welfare, anyway? FHA loans, college loans, capital depreciation tax write-offs, farm subsidies . . . if you take those, aren’t you on welfare?”

Well said, Franklin McCain. And this week, as we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the ties between the civil rights movement and unions, let us also take a minute to look back in appreciation at Franklin McCain, one of the Greensboro Four. His death last week should remind us that the battle for equality remains alive.

As I said earlier, there is no Washington, DC memorial and no national holiday to remember Franklin McCain. But the site of the Greensboro Woolworth where he and three classmates sat-in at the lunch counter 54 years ago pays him perhaps the greatest tribute of all. It is now the home of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.